Page 149 of Black to Light

It went really, really dark––darker than any moonless night above ground.

Before I could pull out my phone and mess with the flashlight app, sparks rose in front of me in two places, then in two more places behind me. Those strange, greenish-blue torches the seers used ignited the walls, ceiling, and floor of the cave-like tunnel. I didn’t know much about how they worked, but I knew they used organic tech, like the headsets. The Old Earth seers called themyisso,or sometimes, organic torches.

They lit up every face and every section of the tunnel around me.

Everyone’s faces turned discolored and sickly, but I could see everything in surprising detail, down to a segment of cave wall that had been mounted and labeled on the tunnel wall.

The white-painted arch stood starkly visible up ahead, now writhing with green and blue, fire-like trails from the torches as we approached.

Black went through first, with me close behind.

We only walked maybe six more yards, when a metal walkway, like a small suspension bridge, appeared out of the pitch black.

I followed the light as Jax and Luce walked up on either side of us. They kept going until they’d ventured to the very edge of the rock floor.

They swung the torches in wide arcs in front and to each side, giving us glimpses of the much larger cave’s dimensions. To our right, the walls were too far away for us to make them out in any detail. Minerals glinted where the torches caused them to reflect green and blue light, and I saw what looked like a pool of water on the deepest part of the floor.

On the other side, the wall was close, jagged, covered in stalactites and stalagmites. It dripped with water and different-colored minerals where it hung over the narrow, metal bridge. The dry parts shimmering with more minerals, and I saw…

“Wait,” I whispered. “Stop there.”

Jax obediently halted the path of his torch.

Painted animals that looked like deer and horses roamed over the cave walls, running up them in an angle like they could fly. I sucked in a light gasp, following the progression with my eyes, seeing handprints and more symbols I didn’t understand.

“Cave paintings,” Kiko whispered from next to me, equally awed.

“We’ll look at them later,” Black grumbled.

He didn’t sound angry, more amused.

Black walked onto the metal bridge in front of us, holding the hand rails on either side. He stepped carefully at first, likely trying to minimize noise, then walked with more confidence. When he was maybe ten feet out over the cave floor, he looked back.

“It’s fine,” he said, voice low. “Sturdy.”

I nodded and followed him.

He’d let go of the railings by then, so I didn’t try to grab them, either. I’m not sure I could have reached both sides, anyway; the walkway was narrow, but had room enough for two people to walk comfortably side-by-side, even if both people were relatively large.

The bridge made whispering squeaks and groans, even with all of us walking as softly and quietly as we could.

Of course, it probably didn’t matter.

There was a good chance whoever and whatever lay ahead, it knew we were coming. If nothing else, depending on the dimensions of the cave, and the exact acoustics, they might have heard us talking to one another by the arch, or they might’ve seen the torchlight already.

The walkway curved gently to the right after we’d walked another twenty or so feet.

I continued to glimpse details on the walls. Quiet drips of water and more slime-covered rock formations followed us as we ventured deeper. More paintings and handprints, and small brown and black figures that looked like depictions of humans, also appeared once we’d walked around that first curve on the catwalk.

A second curve took us to the left.

A third curve took us back to the right.

A large rock formation swelled out over the bridge on the right side that time, and for the first time, we were hemmed in by the mountain on both sides.

That’s when I first heard it.

It sounded like… scuffling. Heavy breathing.

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